접촉지대의 사람과 事物― 18세기 前期 중국 문헌 속 臺灣 원주민 서술과 그 의미

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyze the strategy and meaning behind the recognition and reproduction of Taiwan and Taiwanese people through the travel writings of Chinese people experiencing Taiwan during the first half of the 18th century. The main writings analyzed in this paper are the Gazetteer of Zhuluo county (Zhuluo xianzhi), articles on Taiwan by Lan Dingyuan (1680-1733), and An Investigation of Savage Custom in Six Categories (Taihai Shicha lu) by Huang Shujing (1680-1758). While the Gazetteer of Zhuluo county, published in 1717, expresses an aversion to the appearance of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, it pays more attention to the 'things' they use than the people themselves. This focus on describing the form and efficacy of each object indicates a fading interest in criticizing the indigenous peoples of Taiwan from a moral and ethical perspective. Lan Dingyuan, who visited Taiwan in 1721, argued that its territory should be actively developed, with his pioneering narrative converting the island into a multi-layered space that had to overcome different stages of civilization and a frontier that desperately needed development. An Investigation of Savage Customs in Six Categories, completed in 1724, does, however, classify indigenous Taiwanese people into 13 types and examines them in six thematic categories. Although the narrative system employed in this book appears neutral, it separates the indigenous peoples from the local landscape, thus removing a sense of locality from a discussion of their lives. An Investigation of Savage Customs in Six Categories emphasized the changes underway in Taiwan at the time, as it moved toward civilization, and the prospects for its future. However, the changes in the attitude of indigenous peoples toward the Chinese, as depicted by the author, are closer to acculturation than one-sided assimilation. On the other hand, the 34 indigenous songs presented in the book draw on a mixture of the image of the Taiwan of the past and a compositional impulse seeking to transform Taiwan into a universally Chinese space. Moreover, the narrator also poetically expresses the desires and emotions of the Chinese observer rather than those of the island’s native people.